You gotta get a job now, better get down the the McDonalds ASAP, and prepare to be fisted for the next 19 years by Ronald McDonald. I hear Hamburger University has good courses in Logistics.
My boy James L. Walker is too smart to work at McDonald’s. What he needs to do is find a call center that pays commissions as well as hourly. I think that Mr. Walker would be a very good credit card salesman, as long as he can speak reasonably fast and has an inoffensive voice, that is. In the meantime, he should also be doing some volunteer work here and there to make contacts with other (richer) volunteers and maybe one of them can talk Mr. Walker into a really good job…or hire him themselves.
Distribution Centers also pay well, though, if he can find one of those. Speaking of logistics, if you work at (some) distribution centers, they will pay for you to go to trucking school as long as you stay at the company for five or so years, if not, then you have to pay them back for the trucking school.
I strongly recommend against trucking, as I know too many truckers in ohio out of work. Call centers are nice, I worked for the FCC for a while doing that, but I see the technology eclipsing that in a very few short years where it will increasingly get electronic. It’s not uncommon for call centers to suddenly get shut down because they lost the contract to india.
I already tried the electrician route, it’s a dead industry for new guys coming in, even here in Hawaii the union is backed up with new guys waiting on a 4 year waiting list trying to get in. Kenosha was a bad choice… the jobs you can get elsewhere is already taken by cheap mexicans. Subway, eat fresh. 8 bucks a hour, 6 month commitment. Labor ready, or something until then.
That’s an excellent point about call centers. I suppose that, ideally, you can get into a call center on the customer service and support end. I know that Comcast has a large call center in Pittsburgh, PA and AT&T has one in Wheeling, WV. You get commission on the upsells in those places, and established customers prefer talking to Americans, at least many of them, so I don’t see those positions going anywhere.
You can also take things the electronic route, and with a dedicated phone line and Internet you can work from home doing customer support. That could become difficult, however, when the kids are actually of the age that they are running around.
I generally agree with you with respect to truck driving, but like I said, if you start out in a distribution center and it is said center that makes the agreement concerning trucking school with you, then you should be fine.
I don’t know anything about the electrical field to be able to comment. I would say that any call center that is hiring would be a safe bet for at least a year, even when operations are moved to a different country, the process doesn’t happen overnight. Furthermore, if you can get to the level of supervisor (or higher) within a call center and are willing to move your family overseas, there’s plenty of opportunity to go abroad and train/supervise them. I was offered to go to the Phillipines and be a call center manager once, but obviously, I quickly declined.
Also check craigslist.org… I see under the Kensoha Racine listings some jobs available not stolen by the mexicans under general labor and restuarant. This is easy to get into, and you can use Pav as a reference who will lie for you, pretending to be a past employer. The hardest thing for a homeless person to get a job is lack of a mailbox (which I cunningly have my mail sent to a paid box service and just lie as to my address on some random street in a bad neighborhood where the mail always gets stolen, therefor the paid box), lack of a continuity of references willing to cover for them, and of course, showing up clean and dressed for work. The whole figuring out how to shower and keep clean and not show up hairy and with dirty hair isn’t always as simple as it would seem, and I spend most of my time figuring out several alternative methods in the beginning before looking for work to overcome these issues. I don’t mind the idea of lying to get a low skill simple job, but don’t do it for something that requires accreditation as well as intimate knowledge of the subject matter being dealt with in the job to properly do it without destruction of property or risk to safety of others. It’s okay to lie to get a dish washer’s job, but not that of a engineer or nurse.
I worked at the Moundsville, West Virginia call center- rode a chinese scooter every morning in the dark along the ohio river to do so. I recommend against NOT doing that unless your gonna bumb it at the palace of gold. Be prepared to give up 70 percent of everything you make though doing it back to them. I know a few guys working there, decided to stay on after the FCC gig was over. Took me a hour to ride down the panhandle every morning.
There is suposedly gas jobs fracking shit out there. I’ve been told this a few times, but don’t believe it. I recommend NOT moving to the Ohio River Valley, I escaped there 2009- I know too many people chronically unemployed, hunting to stay alive. I heard more gunfire there than in the triangle of death in Iraq. However, Glenville State College in Glimer County is free to residents. You need a GED to get in, and have to pay the first semester and prove you have a 3.0 before the state funds your degree. It’s freeall over the state like that, but recommend Glenville as it’s isolated as fuck. The year I went to college I was 17, people in my class back in highschool were pissed I leaped that much farther ahead of them. A decent college, very low rent, and lots of country and a mild climate (usually does’t snow) but it’s economically depressed as fuck, and if you don’t have a car, no luck getting a job as you have to drive all the way to Clarksburg to find it. But yeah, they have degrees in logistics.And no, there are no call centers nearby. Only hillbillies.
If you choose west virginia as Pav told you, which I do strongly NOT recommend- Obama and Clinton did alot of terrible things to them… I can hook you up with some networkers there who know everyone. Social workers, literacy coordinators who can get you the grants you need, church organizations, reference librarians indebted to me, etc. The social worker I know from growing up, a literal ex communist before the soviet union collapsed, now she’s all Walden and shit in her 750,000 dollar log cabin mansion. I can do a bit of work in that arena, but know it will suck asa mother fucker and the help will mostly be aimed at school and help with grants and emergency materials such as food stamps and perhaps maybe sector 8 housing, though there are plenty of people more deserving locally than a outsider who should get it first… though it’s hardly difficult to move into a rusted out old mill boiler and put flooring in from old crates and home depot sticky tiles and call it a relatively nice home. Coal mining is a possibility in the deep south, but Obama is running havoc on this last industry in the state after Clinton waged war on the steel industry.
Pittsburg isn’t that great of a place, I used to work there as well before joining the military. Rent can be affordable, and I recall a guy on craigslist offering homeless vets rent for 100 a month, but it’s not a roaring economy. Not a bad place, and has a decent philosophical history.
Jesus Christ, you rode down US Highway 250 from the Palace of Gold on a scooter!? You’re taking your life into your own hands doing that, there are a few turns on US 250 that I don’t like in a compact sedan, let alone a scooter.
Anyway, I take it the place you’re referring to is TeleTech, and apparently, that’s not such a bad gig in many ways. I believe they have a long-standing contract with Charter Communications to take inbound customer service calls. I understand that there are certain bonuses associated with upselling in that program, but I don’t believe there are actual commissions, per se. In fact, I think your upsell rate has to be within certain parameters there or you don’t have a job there anymore…most people I have known to work there have lasted awhile, though.
There are definitely natural gas drilling rigs being put up all around here, which includes said fracking jobs. You don’t have to have an anything in anything in order to do that, just be willing to travel (especially when the work moves, and it will) and know your head from your asshole. I think that you have to have a High School Diploma, or the equivalent, but that’s about it. It seems like the hours are really long, as well, at least, from what I’ve heard.
The key is to get a job doing the Abstracting if you’re in that field. Title research. Courthouse work. I’ve been told you almost have to know someone to get involved in that, though, and that the hours are pretty much equally long…but the work itself is fairly easy. Repetitive and monotonous, but easy.
The people who are chronically unemployed, that you reference, are so because they choose to be so. Teletech will hire just about anybody, as will any of the other call centers in that area. Have to pass a drug test, though.
I’m afraid I don’t know anything about Gilmer County or Glenville State College. I both agree and disagree with your opinion of the Ohio River Valley. Were you ever to the Acapulco in Moundsville? That’s the best fucking Mexican you’re likely to get in either West Virginia or Ohio, I can tell you that, although, El Paso in Wheeling is pretty good.
By the way, did you ever make it down to New Martinsville? They have a Peking Chinese Buffet there that’s out of this world. I don’t go there anymore, as I am a vegetarian, but I used to.
The funny thing about the Palace of Gold is that it is the tour of the actual Palace that costs, but the Temple is inifnitely cooler and you can walk in anytime.
Pittsburgh has a fascinating history with respect to the Mafia, as does Wheeling, and that’s when shit actually went well with both of those cities. It’s kind of a shame that the Mafia is no longer running things around there, they knew how to handle business, and the Wheeling Numbers Game was even on the square, from what I’ve been told.
I don’t think that we know one another, at least, not well. You look vaugely familiar in your avatar picture, but I have never worked at Teletech. If you want to, you can PM me your age and we’ll just trade bits and pieces back and forth and try to figure it out. I have no problem saying in the open that I am 28 years old.
Why would it be a bad feeling for us to know each other?
I rode from Weirton, not Moundsville- I was trying to place a location he could stay in Moundsville. I didn’t like the images of a hobo in wheeling… what is that big ass hill near exit 9 where they have Cabellas? Have his ass sleep on that!
I too am 28. I used to jog from Weirton to Wheeling, and sometimes New Martinsville in my early teens. My hikes used to take me out to Little Washington. I’ll return in a few years, but right now I am collecting books and views to bring back… the philosophical capacity of West Virigina has a firm footing, with Byrd and the stand during the civil war amongst the most prominent, but I really want to expand our horizons dramatically. I’ve been gone since 2009 collecting materials. Wasn’t big on living on welfare and could only find a 9 hour a week job, and was tired of bumming off my spiritual mother for a place to stay. So I moved on, and kept moving.
Know some of that Mafia is still around, and I have connections to the sicilians via my half brother- it’s enough to get me in. Sometimes I just break out into singing Dean Martin songs. I can climb a hill like no other, even with a fucked up knee. Yeah… right now I gotta continue this sojourn though, not heading back anytime soon. The position of West Virginians isn’t too different from that of John Adams looking at America… we need to get out and travel more, and cultivate ourselves with new experiences and bring back the best. I know too many destroyed and suppressed there into inaction. I got back from the military and found my childhood house ringed by casinos, gang shootings and prostitutes everywhere. The old solutions of go to college wasn’t gonna cut it… I was already smarter than everyone in my college when I went- they all studied with me and got better grades than me because I just lost interest on my own end. Nothing to do but work for someone else and accept a place in a ever dwindling spectrum of things.
When I do return though, it will be with a roar. I’ve done alot since then. I am planning on doing a history of west virgina from a philosophical perspective, comparing it to other societies throughout history. We have a unique position in American History. Right now, I gotta figure out how to get Hawaii more self sufficient with food. It’s practice for later on. As I said, when I will return, I will really return. Some things will change. I’m tired of everyone accepting the heaviest burden for the smallest award, and having their lives destroyed by people far away seeking to exploit them.
Jesus Christ! You rode from Weirton to Mondsville on a goddamn scooter!? That must have taken damn near three hours just to get to work. Why did you ride along the river? I would have to say that most cops would have left you alone on Route 2 as long as you rode in a way that was respectful to the other traffic…what little of it there is on Route 2.
The problem with Moundsville is that the housing is very cheap, but there’s really not that much of it. There are not very many vacant houses or apartments there, and most of the ones that are would be for sale as opposed to for rent. If his fiance’ is pregnant, however, that might help them with getting Section 8 and maybe he could move into that apartment complex on the Jefferson Avenue Extension. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot happens there, and it has a nice little playground. I’ve also been told that there is an apartment complex, of sorts, kind of behind Reynolds hospital in Glen Dale, I don’t know if that’s true or not, I’ve never had a reason to go back there.
In terms of Section 8 Housing in Wheeling, there’s Booker T. Washington Apartments, which is on Chapline Street. I actually had a friend that lived there about 5-6 years ago, his apartment actually wasn’t too bad, pretty clean, nice view from the balcony. Hil-Dar Apartments in Elm Grove is also an option, I guess, if you’re desperate, because that place is a shithole. I believe that the apartments in North Park are also income-based, had a double-murder there a year or so ago, so I don’t know if that’s the way to go…I used to DJ a few shows years ago and that’s where the guy with all of the equipment lived, except his apartment was not income based (though it was there) his apartment seemed nice enough. Nothing special at all, but nice enough.
You should remember those newer Victorian Homes on Route 2 in North Wheeling, there are even more of those in a place called, “Wheeling Heights,” which used to be called, “Grandview Manor,” before that housing complex was torn down. Believe it or not, many of those residences are income-based, and some are assisted home ownership, but the waiting list for either is in years…Mostly people that live in Hil-Dar, Booker T or North Park and want to move!
Did you jog on the Heritage Bike Trail that runs along Route 2? Depending on how long ago it was I may have seen you there. It’s hard to say. Back when I ran that is where I would go, but I would usually only jog from Downtown Wheeling to the Pike Island Dam and then turn around and jog back. I wonder if you went to West Virginia Northern Community College, Downtown Wheeling, I did before I transferred to Park University in Kansas City, MO.
I’m not surprised you’ll be returning despite your low opinion of the area espoused a few posts ago. We all do, I don’t know why, but we all return, at least to the general area. I believe that you would love Paradox Books, Centre Market, Wheeling, if you have not already been there. That guy’s a riot!
Why could you only find a nine-hour/week job when there are so many call centers? Let me know two-three months ahead when you intend to move back to that area and you’ll have a full-time job. I can’t say that it will pay more than $10/hour with conviction, but I’ll get you a full-time job somewhere, for sure.
There’s not enough of the mafia still around. I think Boury going bankrupt and the final party that they had at Wheeling Inn almost represented a last hurrah for what little was left of the Mafia around there. I could be wrong. They make their history known, but obviously not their present actions!
I don’t think they are suppressed into inaction, there are just too many people here that are entirely way too fucking lazy and often have it better on welfare than they would if they stayed married and tried to work.
With all due respect, I have no idea about any gang shootings going on anywhere, unless your childhood house was in Weirton or Steubenville, then maybe.
The casino has brought terrific employment, investment, opportunity and tourism to that area. Prior to the natural gas drilling, the Casino and Oglebay Park as well as events such as Jamboree in the Hills, the Heritage Port Blues Festival, the Sternwheel Festival, The Italian Festival and the Regatta were the only things proping that area up. The Capitol Music Hall is opened back up again, by the way, or was it re-opened before you left?
Shit, I’ll be looking forward to it when you do return! I’ll be eager to meet you, if we have not already met.
Okay, if baby is showing, it’s two or three months into the pregnancy at least. Section 8 takes a while.
I like how we’re plotting the takeover of his life without asking him.
Okay, if you can get him a job in something, say a call center, and guarantee him a mailbox, we can get him set up with a state ID. I can’t get into my own mailbox yet- place was closed till monday… pisses me off, but I SHOULD in theory have a paycheck. I can give up to 100 dollars for a greyhound ticket. If he can get there, and have the cost of a conversion of his ID card to a local one, that would be great- but I don’t have that kind of money to give out as I am a hobo myself, and need tp do exactly the same thing. I know the general trick is to have a job INADVANCE before applying for a ID card so they don’t reject it, as you now pay taxes. It’s what I had to do for Hawaii. Lost my Ohio licence in San Jose Airport, just got mailed back to my old address, waiting for it to arrive here. I had a california state ID I got my license with.
I gave my artic gear to a schitzo hobo living behind the downtown krogers in Weirton, and I just heard the police destroyed my gear he was using to survive the winter- which means now I am honored bound to beat the mother fuckers to the brink of death individually when I return. Just gotta make sure to do it when they are off duty. Winter isn’t no joke there, I’ve kept him alive for several years. Hell need a way to keep warm and sheltered… if you know of any people who can get him a job, in say the telecom business, I can get the social worker to try to pull strings in getting him and his wife settled in section 8 as soon as possible- I think she covered all the northern panhandle now. He has to work though- life sucks something awful if you don’t work and don’t know how to hunt in West Virginia. Foodstamps isn’t that much, nor is the housing that much of a comfort when it’s humid as hell outside in the summer or cold as fuck in the winter and you have no electricity.
I can also see if I can tap the Northern Catholic Community Network (something along those lines, used to deliver papers to them as a child, studied their methodology growing up). If he is latino, we can get him associated with the laubach, I can get people to help him and his fiance classes if he needs a GED.
Normally I would say wait till spring, and I THINK THIS IS A BAD IDEA. But your hurting, which I don’t mind as a Cynic, but your hurting with a baby on the way.
IF pav can get you a job, allow you to use his mailing address as well, he’ll have to scout out a spot where you can weather the winter. Not as easy, as Pav has little idea what it’s like being a hobo, or the way cops hunt such people down.You can’t just head off into the woodline and pop up a tent and expect it to always be there, police will smash it eventually. If it’s moundsville, just start saying Hare Hare Rama Rama and get used to walking up and down a big ass hill and eating vegetables and standing around 17 wax dummies of a bald freaky guy- one of which is sitting on a toilet reading a newpaper. Maybe in theory there is still a homeless shelter in Wheeling… but you REALLY, REALLY need to be local to not have the police chase you out, meaning a ID with a local address, with a cover story. My county only had 17 homeless people, all offered houses as I was growing up, and all rejected the offer.There was no need for one.
I recommend giving Pav your resume. It will take time for me to push the techtonic forces into motion, but I do have some good contacts for this. You’ll like totally owe us.
And yes, I ‘hiked’ that trail BEFORE it was a trail, back when it was active railtracks. Every damn place I used to hike and jump trains have been turned into recreation trails, I visit, and see a bunch of fat fucks waddling where I used to hike one foot every two rails in the middle of the night when it rained as a child. You know what, that movie Super 8 truamatized me- it took place in my old town, in all the places I used to go. Steven Spilberg even punched a fucking hole in the wall of the place I was going to put my publishing company. I screamed in the movie theater in San Francisco when I saw that fucking cube fly through the wall… I know those ass monkeys didn’t patch it up after they left. Blitzkrieg my neighborhood, and launch a military raid on MY elementary school, and conduct military evacuations on MY block. Motherfuckers. I know people buried in that graveyard the alien lived under. I even know where there is a cave nearby. The motherfuckers stole my childhood.
Things you need:
Resume
Birth Certificate or
Social Security Card
State ID card
Nice if you have a passport-I always keep mine in storage with my social security card.
college transcripts if you have any… GED or High School Diploma is you have one. I can help with the GED if you need to get one, I know everyone in the state training wise for that, I had to take the damn thing to get into college when I was a minor living on my own- I scored the highest in local history, which was akin to winning the gold in the Special Olympics… not something I usually run around bragging about but it is something that gets strings pulled when trying to get help to someone else.
It can take awhile, but with the points system they use, they’ll do pretty well on the points. They’d do better if they were married, she’d do better on the points, I believe, if she had been married to and was divorced from him, but their situation should get them up the list faster.
I also have some connections in that field. However, I’m not going to delve too deeply into that openly. If Joker ends up being interested, any specific information about the people I know in the housing industry can be discussed via PM.
It’s fun, except, while we’re devoting pages of text to this, he’ll probably just jump on, scan the first few paragraphs, and say, “Fuck these crazy bastards.”
I can most assuredly get him a job in a call center. Shit, I could give him three, describe what kind of calls he would make, and he can just pick whichever one he likes the best. I’d probably recommend TeleTech for the sake of hours stability, with this being the front half of the year, or AT&T. AT&T is actually a Union call center, full health benefits, and while I hate Unions, I know people that work there and do quite well.
I can get him a mailbox, easily enough, all I would have to do is open a P.O. Box for him. There are quite a few available in my town. I’m sure that I could help out with the ticket on the transportation front. I wonder if there’s a Greyhound in Kenosha? That would be convenient as there is one right in downtown Wheeling.
I think it’s terrible that such a thing would happen. If it makes you feel any better, we have had a comparatively VERY mild Winter this year, especially in terms of snowfall. We’ve only had one thing that would even really qualify as a storm. By the way, were you still around in February of 2009 when there were four feet of snow on the ground? Did you know that as of the end of February, 2009, we had more snow that month than Anchorage, Alaska had for that entire winter season to date?
It looks like we both know people who might be able to help him out with housing. It seems that you have a social worker and I have someone that actually works in public housing management, a couple of someones, actually. I could definitely get him a job in the telecommunications business, like I said, he can basically pick his call center. There are probably a few other jobs I could get him, as well, but I’d want to talk to those people before I started making any promises to him about those jobs.
Most of the houses covered by Section 8 include your utilities. I know that the main public housing places (Hil-Dar, Booker T,) certainly include all of your utilities in your rent, if you even pay rent to begin with. In the meantime, there are a number of hotels in the area with low-enough weekly rates that if you are making $10/hour and working full-time, you could live at those hotels with only a little bit of financial struggle. Of course, the hotels would include the costs of absolutely everything except your food.
I don’t think he is, but even if he were, if we’re thinking of the same place, they just changed directors. It’s some young woman now, but I can’t remember her name. I saw her on the News, once.
I would suggest that he do it just as fast as we can get it put together. I wouldn’t want him to move out here without a permanent housing arrangement, though, either that, or it would be fine if he had a job lined up and enough cash for three weeks at a hotel and all the food he would need during that time.
I can most certainly get him a job, and I would also set him up with a P.O. Box. I have a P.O. Box, myself, I live a bit outside of any of the larger towns we have discussed (via PM), so the mail doesn’t get delivered to my house. I really don’t see Walker as Hare Krishna material, but they’d certainly give him a chance!
Yes, he will owe us big time. I will take my payment in the form of dinner when they are established. I hope his fiance can cook, because I can most certainly eat.
I know all about it. I grew up on the Ohio side of the river where the tracks are still there and are still active. Train-hopping, walking the tracks from Powhatan all the way down to Brilliant, sometimes even Steubenville. Those were some really great times. Just walk and think, walk and think, hours and hours, sometimes an entire day…in the 24 hour sense, even.
There was also some Denzel Washington movie about a train, they filmed some of that over in Bellaire, OH, I guess. If you still have the address, I can go check on that wall for you, I’m in Weirton…pretty rarely…but once in a while I pass through it. I would think it would be kind of cool to see all of the rest of the stuff in the movie, though, especially the Elementary school, which I’m sure was undamaged and probably left better than it was when they found it.
